Pubdate: Thu, 24 Dec 2015
Source: Tucson Weekly (AZ)
Copyright: 2015 Tucson Weekly
Contact:  http://www.tucsonweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/462
Author: Aari Ruben

MMJ Update and Opinion

NEW CONDITIONS

The State Is Failing to Meet the Requirement to Allow New Medical Conditions

The Arizona Medical Marijuana Act has provided safe legal access to 
medical cannabis to sick Arizonans since the passage of Prop 203 in 
November 2010. The program is regulated by the Arizona Department of 
Health Services. New conditions can be added to the program during 
open application periods twice a year, but the rules surrounding the 
process and the specific standards by which these conditions are 
approved or denied are largely left to the AZDHS administration. 
AZDHS has fought hard against all the petitions filed in the history 
of the program. Only PTSD, with the help of the Arizona Cannabis 
Nurses Association has been successfully added as a qualifying 
condition. AZCNA Attorney Ken Sobel appealed the AZDHS denial of PTSD 
and prevailed.In a huge victory for patient rights, this was special 
because is it is the first mental health condition to be approved for 
treatment under the AMMA.

In July 2015, the Arizona Cannabis Nurses Association filed for eight 
new conditions to be added to the program: traumatic brain injury, 
arthritis, Huntington's disease, Tourette's syndrome, Parkinson's, 
diabetes, autism and neuropathic pain.

As predicted, the AZDHS denied all eight petitions without a second 
thought. Six of the eight petitions were denied outright with nary a 
reason given for the decision-this happens to be against state law as 
the process for denying a petition requires both a reason for the 
denial and notice explaining the appeal process. The state has failed 
to meet either of these requirements.

Perhaps even more alarming were the denials of the petitions 
regarding Parkinson's and Huntington's. These petitions were deemed 
compliant, but they were also denied without a hearing. In this case 
the reason given was that "well established and accepted standards 
used in approving all other medications in the United States should 
be followed."

This position is completely arbitrary and has no more basis than 
"because I said so ..." Nowhere in Prop. 203 is such language 
incorporated. If there was such a standard it would be an impossible 
one to achieve in today's world. The National Institute on Drug Abuse 
controls the supply of cannabis for research in the U.S. and has 
systematically created a blockade of this type of research in the country.

Sobel notes that he plans to appeal all eight denials and that 
"medical cannabis is neither a food nor a drug under Arizona law. 
Cannabis is available not because the federal government or FDA 
approves of it, but exists because the voters of the state approved a 
regulated medical marijuana program, and the courts have repeatedly 
held that their 10th Amendment and non-preemption right to do so," he says/

Enough already Arizona government, enough of the moratorium on 
administrative rulemaking, enough of the arbitrary interpretations of 
state laws and because I said so rulemaking. Take your head out of 
the sand and look around: suicides, prescription pill overdoses and 
drunk driving all decrease in states with regulated marijuana. The 
people of Arizona have spoken, medical cannabis is the law of the land.

Please start to follow the law, your own rules and good old-fashioned 
common sense, and allow the information about these illnesses and the 
information about our methods be explained at a public hearing.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom